Ulster Television, together with its four partners in the Channel Three News consortium, has tendered its bid to provide network news to one of Britain's largest television channels.

The Channel Three News consortium, which includes satellite giant, BskyB and the American CBS network, has begun the first challenge against the broadcasting group, ITN which provides the ITV news.

ITN has provided the news to ITV for 45 years and also supplies the Channel 4 and Channel 5 networks with news bulletins.

The company, which has previously fought off other competitors for the ITV contract, has also tendered a proposal to continue to provide the news service.

The Channel Three consortium, also backed by the Chrysalis group and Bloomberg, yesterday tendered its proposals to provide the ITV news.

The contract is estimated to be worth more than £150 million sterling (€244 million) and would begin in 2003.

The consortium's board, which includes Mr John McCann, managing director of Ulster Television, said its proposals would make ITV news more popular and more original.

Mr Richard Huntingford, chairman of Channel Three News, said the consortium's proposal would allow ITV to beat BBC in the news ratings war and also be more cost-effective because it would only provide news to ITV.

Channel Three News is a standalone company with its own management team.

The consortium said it planned to focus solely on providing news for ITV and had no other ambitions.